Pray Prey to advertisers

I wondered when the ABC's Gruen Transfer started just whether it would be successful. Taking as its premise the examination of the phenomenon of advertising, it seemed to me a long stretch to imagine that a discerning public might go for it.
However, under the flagship of Andrew Denton's company Zapruder's other films, one wouldl have to watch because he has an uncanny instinct for what works. And it is strangely seductive.
Particularly interesting is the segment in which two advertising firms are pitted against each other to promote the indefensible...whaling...ah Whale Meat, the Beef of the sea....and last week Child Labour (Tire them out and keep them out of trouble).
The disturbing thing is about how plausible advertising can seem. Which is, I guess, the point.
It's witty, intelligent and interesting; which is I suppose why Wil Anderson is hosting it rather than Dermot Brereton...who can stick to 20 funniest ads!

Grim Pickings

The hermeneutic of television is a fascinating thing. If one were, for example, to do research on how representative Sunday night viewing is of the breadth and depth of our culture, it would be quite interesting.
The ABC at 7.30 had the exquisite Wild China. I hope this will go down in the annals as one of the great documentaries. But I watched "Battle of the Choirs" on 7. What a great show. For those of us who love community music, it gives you real up. With 4 billion per cent more heart than Idol, there was both a real sense of competition and a powerful message about what is happening in real Australia. BUT...it's tear jerking stuff, it's really hard to compare one man's music with another's...
Of course being a man I had to channel flick, because Wayne Carey was on 60 Minutes. Now this was interesting, as 9 so threatened by Battle and Wild China that it had to play the 'titillation card'. Maybe!
Any way I ended up recording it. I do not know whether I will be able to stomach watching it. It seemed pretty stage-managed. Even the black mongoose himself....Ray Martin...seemed so enamoured of Carey that he didn't really manage to shake his arrogant persona (this was a far cry from the Denton interview...here...and one wonders if it was a corrective by Carey's media machine) The most laughable end to that interview was Carey declaring that he wanted to use this experience to become a 'counsellor'. I mean the man, while being media savvy, is as thick as a plank!
It gets worse because then the first of the two part series about Schapelle Corby......and it went on and on and on ...and I am still none the wiser.
I wrote some years ago about the (please explain) 'xenophobia' which was promoted in this case.
I was deeply disturbed when in Indonesia to erad an article by an Australian expat, the thesis basically being that the Indonesian legal system is corrupt to the nth degree.
Now, I guess, a case can be made for that. Gee our own system is so spotless!
But we have not so much allowed ourselves to hear the facts as to be appealed to as racists.
I was left unsure wehether this was what was happening here.
I don't want to have to watch episode 2 on Tuesday.
Compass had a deeply depressing but, it seemed to me, very important program about Torture (here)
Apart from all this, Hamish and Andy on the Rove show drank milkshakes and rode a roller coaster to see who would vomit first and the most.
Such was Sunday night.
Ah well I need to go and watch Wheel of Fortune!

Scary Carey

I rushed home from a rather interesting group last night to not miss Enough Rope  in which Andrew Denton was interviewing Wayne Carey.

S said when I reminded her it was on "I'm not watching that rubbish!". Well after all it takes a lot to compete with Desperate Housewives and Money Lies and sex, or what ever it's called.

I dutifully watched fascinated, becoming increasingly bored by Carey trying to justify himself. It seemed to me that he thought he was going to try to and use this interview to tell a well-rehearsed story.

Since there had been much hype about it beforehand, Denton had had the opportunity to comment that he thought Carey still had serious issues. What was interesting was that although Denton is usually a very interactive interviewer my impression was that he sat back and let Carey hang himself. Not that he let him get away with things. And sometimes he asked questions like "When did you stop beating your wife?"...you can't win. Either you admit you once were a wife beater, or half the people who hear it  think ". He protests too much!"

Certainly his major defence was that the papers and the magazines were just lying through their teeth

Was Denton tendentious? I didn't think so. He seemed just to ask and sometimes push for clarification...So the New Idea didn't offer you $180,000 for your story...there was never any discussion of money...neither you nor your team talked money.

Now, by and large Denton doesn't use the sort of mud slinging tactic, so it makes it seem all the worse because the suggestion certainly was that there was more to this than met the eye.

But one commentator on the ABC website did suggest that Denton should have put or shut up...and he didn't.

It is interesting that on the Enough Rope  Guest book (here) most commentators are sad about Carey, but not negative towards him.

My impression is much more in accord with Denton's that this was a very sinister adn cynbical exercise.

I don't think it worked in Carey's favour, but some of the people have been fooled some of the time.

I have more sympathy with Nick D'Arcy, who like Mr Carey allegedly likes to drink to excess and then punch people's lights out.

The difference, maybe there is no differenece, but it could be that D'Arcy is 20 and at the beginning of a stellar career. Maybe there is some hope that he will learn his lesson. So perhaps it should not be, as St Kieran of the teeth says, "one strike and your out" but I certainly wouldn't be letting him have a second strike. Nor like Mr Carey, a third, fourth and fifth just because he's good at sport.

I want to be the  last to pretend that I am sinless when it comes to drinking too much, and nor do I pretend that I have not done anything that I am profoundly ashamed of. 

I just didn't think there was much that was sincere about what King Carey was offering us last night.